CHAROLTTETOWN, P.E.I. – Halifax Metro Boston Pizza (Atlantic) took the 5-1 win over the Rebelles de Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean (Quebec) in Sunday’s Esso Cup opener at the CARI Complex, with Laura Polak (Bedford, N.S.) contributing a goal and three assists and Breanna Lanceleve (Sackville, N.S.) adding a marker and two helpers to the score sheet.

Halifax won the first face off, but Sophie Gagnon (Chicoutimi, Que.) turned it around to score the first goal of the tournament - and Saguenay’s only goal of the game – at 1:06 in the opening period. But Halifax quickly kicked it into gear and scored two goals less than five minutes apart, the first from Amanda Volcko (Halifax, N.S.) and Polak notching the next to make it 2-1 going into intermission.

The second opened with Halifax keeping the puck in Saguenay’s end, with netminder Emy St-Jean (St-Bruno, Que.) deflecting several huge shots to keep the team from Quebec in the game, but Danielle Eustace (Sackville, N.S.) snuck another puck by the goal line after seven minutes of play to make it 3-1 for the Atlantic representatives. Saguenay called a timeout to regain composure, and was able to keep it out of their end for the latter half of the period.

Despite hard fore-checking and solid defence from Saguenay in the third, Lanceleve made it 4-1 at 8:38 and Rachel Carr (Halifax, N.S.) took advantage of a scramble in front of St-Jean to score an unassisted goal at 10:54 and cap it off at a 5-1 final.

Next up for Halifax Metro Boston Pizza is host team Capital District Cyclones, with the puck dropping Monday at 7:30 p.m. AT, while Saguenay takes on the Pembina Valley Hawks (West) in Monday’s early game at noon AT.